


3:19 AM

by Tierfal



Category: Death Note
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is really not the time of day at which Light prefers to discuss their respective revelations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3:19 AM

**Author's Note:**

> For Richelle2972. <3

Light meets L’s eyes in the mirror—they’re luminous, and huge. He’s not sure where the chain’s gotten to. L settles his chin on Light’s shoulder, pressing in against his back, and slides both arms around him, the left hand claiming Light’s hip, the right flattening itself over Light’s heart. L smiles, and it’s sweet at first, and then it’s black and leering and wicked and _wrong_.

That’s when his fingers taper into claws and gouge into Light’s flesh, and hot blood splatters on the countertop, and he opens his mouth to sc—

He wakes up to the sound of himself gasping in a breath. It’s dark except for the glow of L’s laptop screen, which has painted the white sheets a sickly blue. His left hand is lying on the damp pillow before him, clenched into a fist, and both the handcuff and its ring of irritated skin are present and accounted for. He wants to close his eyes, but there’s a deeply irrational fear darting at the corners of his consciousness, and he knows what happens when he plays games with his own mind.

“Are you all right, Yagami-kun?” L asks in a low voice.

It’s discouraging that Light can’t muster the energy to be annoyed. “Fine. Just a dream.”

“What about?”

“Not murdering people, if that’s what you want to hear.”

“What I want to hear is becoming increasingly irrelevant to what is true,” L says.

“If Philosophy 101 is letting out early, I’m going back to sleep.”

The combination of rustling and shifting light means that L is half-closing his laptop and setting it aside. The mattress creaks softly as he lies down.

“What was your dream truly about, Yagami-kun?”

Light weighs his options. He rolls over.

“We’re going to tear each other apart,” he says.

L blinks, incredibly slowly. “I don’t think that’s necessarily true.”

“What you want to hear—”

L smiles thinly. “I deserved that. What I mean is that that particular truth is not predetermined.”

“Isn’t it?” Light says. “We’re both hyperanalytical to the point of deconstructing everything that gets in our way. That has to include each other.”

L blinks again. “I disagree.”

Light rolls away from him. He should have known. He probably did. “Goodnight.”

“I regret to report that it is three-thirty in the morning.”

“Shut up, L.”

It’s quiet for a moment, though Light thinks he can hear his own blood boiling.

“I don’t intend to hurt you,” L says thoughtfully—present and future tense. “The unfortunate reality is that I have spent so long living on my own terms that any social instincts I once possessed have atrophied by now.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Light mutters.

L prods at his shoulder-blade with one finger, and he squirms. “The point, Yagami-kun, is that you’re wrong. There’s no reason that the two of us can’t coexist.”

“If you keep poking me, I’m going to strangle you with the chain.”

“While that would be evidence in favor of your argument, I believe you would get convicted for that.”

“Then I’ll bite your finger off.”

“There are other areas of my anatomy much better suited to the purpose if that is your inclination.”

Light presses his face into the pillow, wondering if it’s possible to smother yourself. “Go to sleep, L.”

“When I have just been promised a biting? Yagami-kun is a terrible tease.”

“You’re going to get a kick to a sensitive place instead if you don’t shut your cake hole.”

L shifts closer and wraps an arm around him. Light tenses, thinking of the smile in the mirror, the rent in his chest, the blood on the tiles, but then L’s fingertips take an unwarranted interest in his ear.

“Can’t you play cute sometime I’m not trying to scrounge up a few hours of sleep?” Light says.

“This is more entertaining,” L says.

Light supposes he was asking for that one.

“ _Goodnight_ , L,” he says.

L curls up against his back. “Sweet dreams, Light.”


End file.
